Art Trap Productions

HORNET'S NEST 2: THE DEAD SHOES

Paul Magrs has never been my favorite DW writer. He's sort of by the book and filled with unoriginal ideas. This is no different but it is, one must say, better than the first HORNET'S NEST audio. The idea of the Red Shoes (a once popular movie/play/dance?) being alien shoes in a museum with an old stuffy lady taken over by aliens really fits the Fourth Doctor and Tom Baker and he relishes it with pride and takes it to places it shouldn't even go and it's rather more entertaining than the first one. There's still a sad feeling that Tom is just a bit old now and at times he also does that deep toned angry voice a bit too much one might say. Still, the images here, all borrowed from other things such as THE RED SHOES and THE INCREDBILE SHRINKING MAN and others, are memorable. The Doc gets a few psuedo companions and even gets to be in the past...Mike here is just a cypher to listen to the Doctor and I must say Franklin, who I usually like, is pretty bad here for some reason. Some of the lines seem as if they were written for the Brig and never changed once Franklin took on the role of the comp in this. Still, i'ts nice to hear a comp I'd never put with the Fourth Doctor and ...oh yeah, the Doc's maid is in this again in a big way. I also don't think we got a resolution to whether or not the Doc's new dog was killed by the Hornets. All that said this is an entertaining enough story but what the hornets have to do with the alien shoes is never really clear and the parts that might make the connection aren't really...holding water. In any event, this is worth a listen just to hear Tom as the Doctor interacting with a variety of people and a strange situation...a ripped off one but strange anyway.